Eight-Year-Old on TSA Terrorist Watchlist Gets Frisked

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Eight-Year-Old on TSA Terrorist Watchlist Gets Frisked

The Transportation Security Administration, attempting to squelch nefarious rumors, has asserted on its web site under a “Mythbuster” feature that "No 8-year-old is on a T.S.A. watch list."

Unfortunately for the TSA, the New York Times found an 8-year-old on its list.

Mikey Hicks, a Cub Scout in Camden, New Jersey, is a frequent flyer who can't seem to get a break because he shares a name with another Michael Hicks who has drawn suspicion from the Department of Homeland Security.

This coincidence has resulted in numerous airport delays for his family over the years.

Mikey, who was born less than a month before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, received his first pat-down by TSA screeners when he was 2 years old – an experience that left him in tears.

He was recently frisked aggressively when his family flew to the Bahamas for vacation on Jan 2, just days after the so-called "underwear bomber" attempted to ignite explosives on a flight from Amsterdam to Michigan.

“Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch — someone is patting your 8-year-old down like he’s a criminal,” Mikey's mother told the newspaper. “A terrorist can blow his underwear up and they don’t catch him. But my 8-year-old can’t walk through security without being frisked.”

Mikey's mother, Najlah Feanny Hicks, is a photojournalist who was cleared by the Secret Service to travel aboard Air Force II with Vice President Al Gore during the Clinton administration.

She said she wanted to take pictures of her son being frisked at the airport but was told it was prohibited. She said that while her son "may have terroristic tendencies at home, he does not have those on a plane.”

Despite the scout's years-long harassment, his father, also named Michael Hicks, was never stopped by the TSA until this year, during the trip to the Bahamas.

Luckily for Mikey and his father, the suspicious Michael Hicks is not on the government’s “no-fly” list, just a “selectee” watchlist that requires secondary screening for passengers named on it.

The newspaper reports that there are 1,600 Michael Hicks in a national phone directory, who may also be getting such treatment each time they fly.

In the last three years, nearly 82,000 travelers have applied for redress with the DHS due to problems with traveling, the Times reports. More than 25,000 of these cases have yet to be resolved. The Hicks have recently applied for redress.